What is the best method uploading my on-premises data to Wasabi?

Wasabi supports several methods for uploading your on-premises data to our hot cloud storage service. These methods are summarized below along with some recommendations on the optimal approach for different upload volume scenarios.

Public Internet: This approach involves using Wasabi's public internet connections (Wasabi has multiple 10 Gbps into each data center) to upload your traffic to Wasabi.

The 'pros' of this approach is that you can use your existing Internet connection with no additional cost or provisioning.

The 'cons' of this approach is that if you don't have a high-speed connection to the internet, it will take a while to transfer your data to us. For example, you can transfer 1 TB in ~2 hours over a 1 Gbps connection but to transfer 1 TB over a 50 Mbps connection, it will take ~2 days. You can try out your own file size vs. bandwidth calculations using one of the many tools available (here is an example).

Wasabi Direct Connect: This approach involves using a private 1 or 10 Gbps from your location to our data center(s).

The 'pros' of this approach is that you get a dedicated direct connection into Wasabi's data center with the highest degree of performance. You also pay the lowest storage price we offer ($3.99/TB/mo.) with no egress charges.

The 'cons' of this approach is that in addition to the monthly port fees that Wasabi charges ($216/mo for 1 Gbps or $1620/mo for 10 Gbps, you also have to work with a network provider to establish a private network connection from your location to a Wasabi data center. This will have added cost and potentially some term-based contract requirements (i.e. a multi-month or multi-year commitment requirement from the network provider).

Wasabi Ball Transfer Appliance: This approach involves the rental of a Wasabi Ball Transfer Appliance from Wasabi. With this approach, you request the appliance, we send it to you, you copy your data to the appliance, and send it back to Wasabi. Wasabi will then ingest your data from this appliance directly into your Wasabi storage bucket.

The 'pros' of this approach is that if you have an internet connection < 1 Gbps, you don't have to wait for that slow network connection to get your data to Wasabi. There are no added costs beyond the transfer appliance rental fee ($300 for up to two weeks of usage in US locations; contact us for usage outside of the US)

The 'cons' of this approach is that rather than uploading your files directly to Wasabi over a network connection, you have to upload files to the transfer appliance, send it to Wasabi, wait for the upload, etc. The logistics of this approach make it less convenient in some situations. Wasabi also does generally not support the use of the appliance for migrations less than 50 TB. In addition, the current appliance holds up to 100 TB (this may or may not be a limitation for you use case; Wasabi does support the use of multiple appliances for the movement of data sets > 100 TB).

Recommendations:

There is no single set of recommendations that will address all use cases but here are some general comments:

1. If you have less than 50 TB to migrate, then using the Public Internet approach is pretty much your only option (even if it is slow). This is because the cost / provisioning requirements of Wasabi Direct Connect likely don't make sense for migrating data of this amount. And, Wasabi Ball Transfer Appliance is not an option as we generally don't support the use of this approach for migrations < 50 TB.

2. If you have more than 50 TB to migrate, you have a choice of either Wasabi Direct Connect or Wasabi Ball Transfer Appliance(s). The best choice between these two will often come down to costs and whether or not you wish to deal with the logistics of using Wasabi Ball Transfer Appliances.

Feel free to contact our Sales or Support team with any questions in this area.